Sometimes an eggplant is just an eggplant, but in the emoji world, it’s usually not. But is sending someone an eggplant emoji or a winky face proof of sexual harassment? When does a gun emoji mean someone is threatening another person with death? Does a thumbs-up emoji mean acceptance of a contract?

Millennials tend to emphasize a healthy work-life balance when choosing employers. That includes lawyers with young children. According to a 2023 ABA study, 61% of the mothers surveyed said they experienced demeaning comments about being a working parent, compared with 26% of fathers. But a growing number of young lawyers are pushing back.

A New York lawyer has been disbarred after coming to the attention of disciplinary officials by filing ethics complaints against others said to contain racist and antisemitic language.

The emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic created a wave of anti-Asian harassment in the United States. The number of incidents increased so sharply that in May 2021, President Joe Biden signed the COVID-19 Hate Crimes Act into law with a special emphasis on protecting Asian Americans.

ABA member Michelle Rozovics—the managing attorney of Rozovics Law Firm in McHenry, Illinois, a small city northwest of Chicago—says curiosity led her to the legal profession. It inspired her to pursue international and business law and to work with clients, law students and judges around the world.

The Violence Against Women Act passed in September 1994. VAWA, as it’s commonly known, was the first federal law to focus on preventing and combating sexual assault and domestic violence. Maricarmen Garza credits VAWA for bringing her to the ABA Commission on Domestic & Sexual Violence.

The ABA is looking for volunteers to go to Alaska. The ABA Section of Taxation recently launched its Alaska Volunteer Income Tax Assistance Project, a pro bono initiative that will take six attorneys to prepare tax returns in remote villages in the state.

A judge dismissed the federal election-obstruction charges against President-elect Donald Trump on Monday, ending a historic investigation that never went to trial but led to enduring changes in the legal landscape over a president’s immunity from prosecution.

President-elect Donald Trump plans to fire the entire team that worked with special counsel Jack Smith to pursue two federal prosecutions against the former president, including career attorneys typically protected from political retribution, according to two individuals close to Trump’s transition. Trump is also planning to assemble investigative teams within the Justice Department to hunt for evidence in battleground states that fraud tainted the 2020 election, one of the people said.

Read the winner of the 2024 ABA Journal/Ross Writing Contest for Legal Short Fiction, written by Rita Radostitz, a former public defender who represents a detainee at Guantanamo Bay.